President Obama won’t take meaningful action to speed the fall of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. But that doesn’t mean his secretary of state should profane the situation with Orwellian distortions and contradicting demands.

Alas, that’s what Hillary Clinton’s been doing. And it just makes matters worse.

For example, after Damascus allowed a street mob to attack the US embassy this month, Clinton declared that Assad had “lost legitimacy.”

But wait a minute: When, exactly, did he acquire legitimacy? He’s a dictator, plain and simple, “elected” in a 2007 “landslide” in which he was the only candidate.

Then, a few days later, Clinton asserted that protesters were “provid[ing] a pathway, hopefully in peaceful cooperation with the government, to a better future.”

OK, so did Assad lose all his legitimacy — or does he still have some left, enough maybe to reach a “peaceful” resolution?

Clinton’s linguistic perversions don’t end there. Trying to distinguish Assad from Libya’s Moammar Khadafy (the Arab butcher whose removal the White House does support), Clinton insisted the Syrian is different — more like “a leader who has not fulfilled the promises that have repeatedly been made over his term in office.”

Hello? There are no terms of office in Syria — just decades of bloody rule by tyrants who have no need to fulfill promises.

And how can she (and her boss in the White House) expect Assad to “host [a] dialogue properly” with opposition leaders, as she’s suggested — when he’s dead set on wiping them all out?

Fact is, Assad won’t launch any serious “dialogue” until he’s lost all his power (not to be confused with “legitimacy”) and is left with no other choice.

Yes, Clinton’s got a tough job.

When your orders are “Do nothing! Fast!” — you’ve got to wing it. (Or, as The Washington Post put it, resort to “diplomatic improvisation.”) Which is why she insisted recently that “none of us really have influence” in Syria.

But pretending that Assad retains any legitimacy only gives him greater standing and more power.